A liquid crystal panel has a configuration in which liquid crystal is interposed between a pair of substrates arranged at a given gap. Specifically, the liquid crystal panel has a configuration in which one substrate has pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix to correspond to pixels, another substrate has a common electrode in common for the pixels, and liquid crystal is interposed between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode. If a voltage according to a gray-scale level is applied and held between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode, the alignment state of liquid crystal is defined for each pixel, thereby controlling transmittance or reflectance. Accordingly, in the above-described configuration, it can be said that, of the electric field acting on the liquid crystal molecules, only a component in a direction from the pixel electrode toward the common electrode (or the opposite direction), that is, a component in a direction perpendicular to the substrate surface (vertical direction) contributes to display control.
On the other hand, in recent years, if a pixel pitch is narrowed for reduction in size and higher resolution, an electric field is generated between adjacent pixel electrodes, that is, an electric field in a direction parallel to the substrate surface (lateral direction) is generated, and the influence thereof is becoming non-negligible. For example, if a lateral electric field is applied to liquid crystal which should be driven by a vertical electric field as in the VA (Vertical Alignment) mode, the TN (Twisted Nematic) mode, or the like, an alignment defect of liquid crystal (that is, reverse tilt domain) occurs, causing a display defect.
In order to reduce the influence of the reverse tilt domain, a technique for devising the structure of a liquid crystal panel by, for example, defining a light shielding layer (opening) according to the shape of a pixel electrode (for example, see PTL 1) has been proposed. A technique for clipping a video signal having a set value or more on the basis of the determination that a reverse tilt domain is generated when an average luminance value calculated from a video signal is equal to or smaller than a threshold value (for example, see PTL 2), a technique for improving defective image quality by applying a correction voltage to a pixel where the phenomenon occurs for defective image quality due to a lateral electric field in a matrix driving display device (for example, see PTL 3), or the like has been also proposed.